All posts tagged nick clegg

David Cameron delivers his No to AV speech on Friday. He may now be more keen the campaign wins in May’s referendum. Photograph: Getty

In the summer months, when David Cameron was luxuriating in the afterglow of his Number 10 Rose Garden love-in with Nick Clegg, there was one subject he simply didn’t want mentioned: his failure to win the general election outright. Tories who suggested in the Prime Ministerial presence that a proper inquest into the duff Conservative campaign was required, on the basis that those who forget the lessons of history are doomed to repeat their mistakes, were told firmly to pipe down.

This weekend, as the Prime Minister contemplates the serious possibility of defeat in the AV referendum, he may have cause to wish he had listened, learned the lessons from the election and thought ahead. The implications for Cameron if the AV vote on May 5 is lost are potentially extremely serious. His parliamentary party would become almost uncontrollable. A senior Conservative backbencher told me: “I think we’ve lost on AV. I think it’s probably too late to claw it back and I think the consequences for Cameron are going to be much, much worse than he realises”.

I wrote yesterday that the No to AV campaign has some problems. Number 10 doesn’t want the anti-AV drive to focus on Nick Clegg, for fear of upsetting Cameron’s coalition partner. The result so far is an indistinct message that lacks clarity and coherence (a state of affairs familiar to those who studied the Tory campaign that failed to win them the general election). The Yes camp has built a strong lead in the polls.

But the Yes campaign is also in the midst of making what may turn out to be a category A error. Fearing that their opponents will, if they have their heads screwed on, try to hang it all on Nick Clegg, they have signed up a bunch of celebrities and luvvies to back their attempt to change the voting system. It reads like a guest list from The World’s Worst Ever Dinner Party.

Art Malik is there, with Joanna Lumley, Tony Robinson and John Cleese. (Incidentally, what on earth happened to Cleese somewhere between Fawlty Towers and now? And don’t say “Clockwise.”) The only one possibly worth admitting is Billy Bragg.

And so far there has been no indication that the anti-AV squad are planning to play with sufficient force their strongest card: Nick Clegg. The Lib Dem leader didn’t care for AV before the election (even Nick doesn’t agree with Nick) but he is now an enthusiastic advocate for it and the figure who it might be said has most to gain from a Yes vote in May. If the pro-AV cause becomes overly identified with Clegg it would have a problem.

For that reason, I’ll wager that the pro-AV campaign keeps Clegg as far from the frontline as possible in the campaign proper. Post tuition-fees, he has worse ratings than Hosni Mubarak, particularly amongst the Labour voters that the Yes campaign must convince if it is to win.

Where to start with this beyond shouting “rubbish.” For a start, is it likely that a truly devilishly placed conservative insider would go round confiding in Tom Watson? Sounds more like a blowhard Tory MP has been trying to impress by giving the appearance of inside knowledge. Most of the cabinet is kept in the dark by Team Cameron and a mere backbench MP (who might speak to Watson after a gin and tonic has loosened his tongue) is unlikely to know what Cameron is planning tomorrow, never mind in May.

It’s simple. The last thing in the world David Cameron wants now or before 2014-15 is a general election. He failed to win the last one, even though he was up against Tom Watson’s friend Gordon Brown, and Cameron hates, absolutely hates, any mention or reminder of that fact. He loves being prime minister, loves the fruits of office and loves the coalition. The deal with the Lib Dems protects him — for now — from the Tory right wing that he detests. He can blame anything they might find unpalatable on the need for compromise in a coalition.

While we wait for Vince Cable’s fate to be decided, and Cameron and Clegg redraw the government on the back of one of Nick’s cigarette packets, it is worth reflecting on the joint press conference held by the prime minister and deputy prime minister at Number 10 earlier.

The pair clearly enjoyed their “Smashie and Nicey“-style event immensely. (“I think you’re great, great mate.” “No you’re greater than me, great mate.” I’m referring to the fictional DJs from Radio FabFM, played by Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse.)

The coalition’s honeymoon is now over, amid cuts and complaints about tuition fees, but while this press conference lacked the atmospherics of their May marriage in the Rose Garden, they were both in confident form. Understandably, they look older and more serious, with the first flash of grey hair even showing in Cameron’s quiff.

The press conference seemed destined to top an amazing year for both, until it was then topped minutes later by Vince Cable blowing up his career. The pair had handled the initial fall out from Round 1 of the Vince tapes well. Cable had apologized for threatening to deploy the nuclear option of destroying the government. It’s great to find a Lib Dem who is enthusiastic about nuclear weapons, joked the prime minister. Cameron then chastised Cable him for telling alleged untruths about Tory plans on the winter fuel allowance.

Arguably it was the best-made party political broadcast of the general election campaign. Whilst Labour’s clever effort with Eddie Izzard was well-crafted propaganda aimed at the party’s core vote, it didn’t quite hit the mark in the way Nick Clegg’s more effective film did. That featured the Lib Dem leader walking through Britain, starting at the Palace of Westminster. He moved on into the ordinary streets of the nation before ending up on a hilltop. Around him all the while fluttered thousands of pieces of paper daubed with descriptions of Labour and Tory ”broken promises.”

Clegg opened with this hostage to fortune of a line: “Broken promises. There have been too many in the last few years, too many in the last 30 years. In fact our nation has been littered with them. A trail of broken promises.” Throughout the subsequent broadcast he adopted a high moral tone.

Eight months later, on the eve of the tuition fees vote, it’s well worth watching the film again. It was, considering the circumstances at the time of its production, a bizarre party political broadcast to make.

Of course one can understand the Lib Dem team’s desire in the middle of an election to make a film that grabbed attention with a clear and unequivocal central message.

But at the time the polls suggested a hung parliament was a serious possibility, for the first time since the 1992 election. This was the moment the Lib Dems had been waiting for.

The leader and senior members of his team knew that within weeks there was a very good chance they would be sitting down with one or both of the large parties to try and cut a deal. Oddly, the party which advocates a change in the voting system to make coalition and its resulting compromises a permanent feature of British politics, then decided to make its central pitch to voters the notion that it, apparently morally pure and playing by a different set of rules to the others, regarded its promises as unbreakable.

Sure enough, just weeks later, parts of the Lib Dem manifesto were traded and various promises made to voters were broken. I’m not casting aspersions. That outcome was always a strong possibility if the result turned out to be a hung parliament. But Clegg, a passionate advocate of coalition, must have known this was likely but still he put on the makeup and walked about in various locations saying he stood for an end to broken promises.

The Lib Dems have worked hard at burnishing their newly acquired reputation as a party of government that deserves to be taken seriously.

The “I agree with Nick” excitement of their election campaign didn’t lead to lift-off for the party but it helped rescue seats in a difficult election where they might otherwise have been squeezed. The party leadership then handled the coalition negotiations well, getting as much out of the panicked Tories as they possibly could (which involved discombobulating the Conservatives to such an extent that Team Cameron forgot that Labour and the Liberals never had the numbers for a rival deal.) The Lib Dems then threw themselves into government with enthusiasm and determination. Their Tory colleagues have found Clegg and other senior figures such as Danny Alexander to be impressive operators.

And now all this. Tuition fees. The word “farce” is sometimes over-used in political journalism, but what other word is appropriate when one seeks to describe the party’s last 48 hours in the spotlight?

Consider the following:

1) A grinning Don Foster MP turns up to address a sizeable crowd of protesting students. The crowd chants abuse at Mr. Foster (“shame on you for turning blue”) before he says that he still hasn’t decided how to vote on tuition fees because he is “still listening to the arguments” . All this is filmed by the BBC and shown on the evening news.

2) A Lib Dem MP has his constituency office occupied by protesting students and then says that he will now vote for the government, as a protest against the students who occupied his office. It is unclear whether or not he is joking.

3) Royal Marine Lord Ashdown is dropped into the middle of the crisis and appears at one point to blame the public: “At the moment they [the public] are just not listening… Nick could deliver the Sermon on the Mount, they are just not listening.”

4) Norman Baker says he has three options on the table ahead of the tuition fees vote but that he hasn’t yet decided. Was there a fourth option, which involved not going on the television to admit that he doesn’t know what to do? It appears not.

Nick Clegg is having a horrible time. His home has been targeted by protesters, he has been petitioned at his children’s school gate, his effigy has been burnt in the street where he lives and his family is entitled to feel at times like it is under siege. It must be terrifying. No wonder the man looks so exhausted. He and his wife have chosen, much to their credit, to remain living outside “fortress Whitehall”, to stay in the family home and try to ensure that his children have an upbringing unaffected by his being Deputy Prime Minister. They should be left alone to get on with it.

An under-pressure Clegg has started to attract considerable sympathy in some quarters, and much praise from centre-right leaning commentators (suggesting he is doomed as a receptacle for left-of-centre votes). Matthew Parris wrote on Saturday that his ideological instincts are closer to Clegg’s than they are to a good many other Tories. (Incidentally, and I think I followed him correctly, Parris seemed to say that Clegg was not a Eurofanatic, which might be stretching it. In January 2009 the Lib Dem leader said that Britain’s response to the financial crisis should probably involve joining the Euro. “The strict rules attached to the euro could emerge as one of the best ways to persuade the markets that we will put Humpty Dumpty back together again,” Clegg said. Is there a condition one stop short of Eurofanaticism? Euromania?)

In recent days it has been almost impossible to open a newspaper without reading a piece praising Clegg’s intellectual and political bravery. Lord Ashdown, talking for once in public about someone other than himself, said Clegg has been has been “wise and courageous” on tuition fees. Hmmmm…

Whilst one abhors the violent attacks and menacing behavior by a minority of Clegg’s critics, can we put the leader of the Lib Dems progress to sainthood on hold?

Yes, yes, it is a significant revelation that Saudi Arabia wanted Iran taken out, but it doesn’t count as much of a surprise. And it is embarrassing that the U.S. has been storing top secret info in such an eminently leakable format. But let’s be honest, there’s also an awful lot of dull rubbish contained in these leaks. And judging by the content of the reports by diplomats, a few of them have too much time on their hands.

It’s a simple question of principle deserving a yes or no answer, surely? The Lib Dems and Nick Clegg have long been enthusiasts for Britain joining the single currency but for some strange reason I haven’t heard them or him mention it much recently. The word “Ireland” springs to mind.

Earlier this week, one of my colleagues telephoned his people in Whitehall to ask whether Nick Clegg is still in favor of Britain joining the euro, now or at some point in the future. The coalition agreement rules out membership in this parliament, but presumably after that the Lib Dem leader is still up for it?

Clegg certainly seemed very sure of the euro and its prospects in this exchange with Gideon Rachman in Prospect back in 2002.

And here is Clegg in January 2009, suggesting that Britain joining the euro might be a way to help get the public finances back in order:

“In that context of people just longing for clearer rules, for reliability, for stability, for certainty, you might just find that becoming part of the reserve currency on our doorstep might become part of the recipe … by which we put the British economy back together on a more sustainable footing … The strict rules attached to the euro could emerge as one of the best ways to persuade the markets that we will put Humpty Dumpty back together again, put the public finances in order.”

This week his spokeswoman took some time to come up with an answer and in the end would say no more than the following: “It is a theoretical question and it is not a decision for now.”